


utaar chadhaav

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: Ramayana fics [17]
Category: Ramayana - Valmiki
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Oneshot, Parallels, Post-Canon, Slightly - Freeform, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 19:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16919268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: utaar chadhaav (Hindi): rise and fall. How queens (do not) thrive in Ayodhya.





	utaar chadhaav

Consider: Kaikeyi bought herself an empire with two long-dead vows, not content with being first in her husband’s affections and desiring more. She ensured her husband died without a single son by his side and ruined the lives of every one of her sons. Thanks to her, Sita bhabi suffered the torments of exile, then Lanka, and then Ayodhya’s own people. Decades later, the stones of her perfidy still cause ripples on the waters of time. 

Consider: Sita lived and loved for Rama’s name alone, choosing fourteen years of exile if it meant being with him. Her trust and pride in him were so absolute that she was able to defy the witchcraft of an entire city. She spreads her compassion and her wisdom like sunlight refracts through a jewel, and all who meet her are the richer for having known her.

Yet it is Kaikeyi whom Rama still reveres above all, Kaikeyi who lives out her widowhood as one of the Rajmatas in silks and palaces, while it is Sita whom he scorns and despises, Sita who must stumble her way through thorns and thickets alone.

A thousand sages and scholars sing of dharma and its seamlessness, and yet all Bharat can think of is how queens rise and fall in Ayodhya, and he tastes ashes. 


End file.
